Angels MLB beat writer Alden Gonzalez just announced the Angels spring training invites for the forthcoming pre-season. Here they are:

Pitchers: Billy Buckner, Kevin Johnson, Tony Pena, Jo-Jo Reyes, A.J. Schugel, Mitch Stetter

Catchers: Jett Bandy, Luke Carlin, Carlos Ramirez, Zach Wright

Infielders: Kaleb Cowart, Brendan Harris, Taylor Lindsey, Efren Navarro, Luis Rodriguez, Eric Stamets, Alex Yarbrough

Outfielders: Randal Grichuk, Trent Oeltjen, J.B. Shuck, Matt Young

Angels fans should recognize some of the names on here. Particularly, Angels prospect Kaleb Cowart and 2011 first-round pick Randal Grichuk. Also included in the list of spring training invites will be reliever Fernando Cabrera whom the Angels recently signed. He will be invited once his contract becomes official.

Players who are looking for a contract or a spot on the 40-man roster include former Blue Jays pitcher Jo-Jo Reyes who the Angels signed in the off-season to shore up their pitching depth. You can add Brenden Harris and Luis Rodriguez to this list as well. Both are journeyman infielders the Angels signed in the off-season to add depth to the infield with the departure of Macier Izturis. These two will be fighting it out for a bench spot.

It should also be interesting to see infielder Taylor Lindsey who at age 20 hit .289/.328/.408 in the Cal League last year and has been scouted as having excellent gap power. At the 2B position, former University of Mississippi star Alex Yarbrough will also get a look. He hopes to improve on his .287/.320/.410 line that he posted last year in Low-A. The young second-basemen lacks the big tools but is considered to be a refined player with good instincts already.

Luis Rodriguez

First question: why doesn’t the MLB hook up with the winter ball leagues for broadcasting TV rights? How awesome would it be to watch baseball in the winter?

Although, judging from this years performances in winter ball, Angels fans wouldn’t have much to root about. Despite having some of the Angels top prospects such as Kaleb Cowart, Travis Witherspoon, Randal Grichuk and Matt Shoemaker playing in winter ball, performances were mostly dismal.

In fact, the best performance came from veteran 32-year old infielder Luis Rodriguez who put up the peculiar slash of .297/.422/.368 (read: lots of singles). The veteran utility infielder was signed this off-season by the Angels in an effort to fill the void left by Maicier Izturis. While it’s nice to see him do well this winter; what does it say about your farm system when your best winter baseball performer is a 32-year old journey man? Yikes.

The rest of the performances were mostly cringe-inducing. Randal Grichuk, who was actually picked before Mike Trout in the draft and has suffered a number of minor injuries holding him back in the minors, struggled in winter ball hitting .228/.297/.351 in 57 at-bats. Kaleb Cowart, arguably the Angels top prospect at this point, also struggled, hitting a paltry .200/.265.283.

The only other notable performance came in a 14-game stint from Erick Aybar who hit just like his major league numbers (.283/.328/.400) in the Dominican Winter League .

Two better performances on the pitching end came from right-handed triple-A pitcher Ryan Brasier and Matt Shoemaker. Brasier struck out 27 batters in 25.2 innings of work while posting a 1.05 WHIP. While Matt Shoemaker put up a decent 3.21 ERA in 33 innings of work with a 1.16 WHIP.

The dismal numbers aren’t surprising considering the Angels thin farm system. John Sickels of Minor League Ball recently covered the Angels top 20 prospects and noted that with the graduation of Mike Trout into the big leagues and a 2012 draft that didn’t include a first or second round draft pick for the Angels, that the farm system is now “quite weak.”

Fortunately, not too much should be invested into winter ball numbers. In last year’s Arizona Fall League, Mike Trout posted a below average .245/.279./.321 while just the year before top prospect bust Brandon Wood did well posting.3 41/.385/.489.

For all Angels players stats in winter leagues, head on over to MLB.com.

Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Probably the most perplexing move that the Los Angeles Angels have made this off-season involves signing back of the rotation starting pitcher Joe Blanton to a 2-year, $15 million dollar deal. A quick glance over Joe Blanton‘s career numbers and there seems to be very little to write home about a big check for.

In his career, Joe Blanton has an ERA of 4.37 and gives up an average of  just under 10 hits per nine innings. His career WHIP is 1.33 while his career strikeout rate per nine innings is 6.1. His home run per nine inning rate is in the bottom 10 of the major leagues over the last two years. In other words, Joe Blanton seems to be your quintessential average-to-below-average pitcher.

Yet, there are still believers in Joe Blanton and Angels GM Jerry Dipoto must be one of them. And maybe they are onto something.

Chris Cwik showcased in the Rotographs section of Fangraphs that Joe Blanton has an exceptional ability to control the strike-zone with one of the best strikeout to walk ratios in the game over the past two years. In fact, he’s fourth under Cliff Lee, Roy Halladay and Dan Haren during that time period.

Cwik also was quick to point out that Blanton’s biggest flaw — giving up the home run — will likely be suppressed pitching in Angels Stadium as well as the AL West where stadiums like the Oakland Coliseum and SafeCo Field are places that home runs often go to die on the warning track.

Jeff Sullivan piped in on Blanton the same day:

“…last season Blanton allowed a contact rate of just over 78 percent. He allowed less frequent contact than Zack Greinke, Matt Garza, Josh Johnson, and Anibal Sanchez. Not only does Blanton pound the strike zone; it’s not that easy to put the bat on the ball.”

Sullivan also pointed out that Blanton’s velocity has actually been increasing. I will add that his strikeouts per nine innings ratio has also increased over the course of his career. From 2006-2008, Blanton was averaging 5.4 strike outs per nine innings. From 2009 to 2012 that has risen to 7.4.

Another factor that is easy to overlook in Blanton’s career numbers is the unusually large gap between his xFIP and his ERA. What can you deduce from that? That maybe Joe Blanton is better pitcher than you think and that he might be getting screwed by something (defense, luck) since FIP measures what a player’s ERA should have looked like assuming that performance on balls in play and timing were league average.

Also, Joe Blanton is durable.  Since 2004, Blanton has hit the DL only three times. Once because of an abdomen strain and twice because of an elbow impingement which he tried to come back too early from.

Finally, consider the number five spot in the Angels starting rotation in the past three years they have failed to make the playoffs. They’ve consisted of the following pitchers: Scott Kazmir, Tyler Chatwood, Jerome Williams, and Garrett Richards.

We can probably assume, with very little trepidation, that Joe Blanton will be better and more consistent than any of these pitchers in 2012.

Hopefully, it’s now a little clearer why the Angels signed Joe Blanton. He won’t sell too many (or any) t-shirts but he will likely give the Angels durability and consistency at the number five spot in the rotation. Something they haven’t had in a long time.